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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706436">Sophie and the Troll</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evengayerpanic/pseuds/evengayerpanic'>evengayerpanic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:46:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,603</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706436</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evengayerpanic/pseuds/evengayerpanic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alice and Robin's toddler daughter goes missing without a trace, kidnapped by Gothel, the two women are desperate to find and rescue her. However, after five years without a single lead, it looks like precocious Sophie is going to have to go on the biggest adventure of her young life in order to save herself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alice Jones | Tilly &amp; Robin | Margot, Alice Jones | Tilly/Robin | Margot, Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is an idea that I’ve had for quite some time for the show Once Upon a Time, more specifically the pairing of Alice and Robin (though I touch on a few other F/F pairings as well!) This is slightly AU, though it follows the canon of the show mostly, only it’s a few years later. I needed to take a small break from my usual, and so I have this! I hope you all enjoy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alice was far from what one could call normal. </p><p>To her wife, Robin, Alice was extraordinary, phenomenal and exquisite… never just normal.</p><p>To her father, Hook, Alice was brilliant beyond belief, beautiful and sweet… never only normal.</p><p>To the people in the wish realm, Alice (who they knew as Tilly) was more than a little mad, loony and curious… never simply normal.</p><p>To her young daughter, Sophie, Alice was Mama, and that was the most normal than she had ever gotten in her life.</p><p>Being a mother didn’t break her of her quirks though. In therapy, one therapist called them obsessions, a second called them compulsions and the last called them ‘a side effect of her traumatic upbringing’. </p><p>Robin had labelled them as quirks, and so Alice had decided that she would use that word for them too.</p><p>Some of them were innocent, almost tradition-like habits. Bringing her daughter to the Troll statue every Thursday for a Marmalade Sandwich picnic, and telling her all about her adventures, was one of the more simple quirks to explain to people.</p><p>The obsession with locking their front door and all of the windows six times a night was deeply ingrained with what she had gone through with Gothel, her so-called mother, but by blood only, not in name. </p><p>Robin was one of the few people that knew of that habit, Hook as well, and Zelena, Robin’s mother had seen it first hand, the few times she stayed with her daughter’s family over a holiday weekend.</p><p>In the five years that they had been together, Robin had watched the routine carefully, Alice starting with the front door and going clockwise until she had checked the doors and windows an adequate number of times to ease her engrained worries. </p><p>She stayed silent the whole time, not bothering her wife as the woman had gotten more and more particular as their family grew from two to three, Alice’s habits growing ever so slightly to take to removing all of the mirrors in the house for extra security, and checking in on their daughter every fifteen minutes between when they put her down for bed, and when they would retire to their own.</p><p>Not once in five years had Robin ever witnessed there be an issue in Alice’s nightly routine.</p><p>Not once… Until she heard the scream that night.</p><p>_________________</p><p>Robin was far from what one could call anxious.</p><p>To her wife, Alice, Robin was the most confident person that she knew. The kind of person who kissed Alice first under a tree, and defended people she didn’t even know from bullies. She was someone who knew the kind of person they were and thrived on it.</p><p>To her mother, Zelena, Robin was the most carefree person that she knew. Her child didn’t get phased by anything; meeting her father’s old friends, coming across an obstacle in school, or facing off against bandits? Robin welcomed each challenge and experience with open arms and an open mind.</p><p>To the people in Storybrooke, Robin was a force to be reckoned with. She took after her Father like nobody had ever seen. She was fun, charming, talented and someone that each and every member of town enjoyed getting to watch grow. She exuded bravery.</p><p>To her precocious daughter, Sophie, she was a role model. Exactly who the two year old aspired to be. Many tempers were relieved with the simple words “Do it just like Mommy does.” Icky vegetables, painful shots, and a few scuffs from playing, nothing phased the girl because nothing phased her Mommy.</p><p>Robin thrived on being all of that, and more.</p><p>Nothing scared Robin, even when it was perfectly reasonable that it should have scared her a little.</p><p>When the curse had came for them, and Robin had felt worried, one look at Alice had made her fearless and confident. She’d never forget the girl, not really, not if she could help it and so even the scariest thing she could have thought, wasn’t that bad in the end.</p><p>When Alice went into labour with Sophie almost three weeks early, everyone fretted and worried, praying that the baby would be healthy. Robin had stood by her wife’s side, promising her over and over that she knew for a fact that their child would be fine, nothing but confidence showing on her face.</p><p>Whenever Sophie got sick, and Alice panicked, Robin was the voice of reason. She would reassure her wife time and time again that the little girl would be more than fine, that she was strong, and brave, and fierce just like her Mama was.</p><p>Yes, nothing ever scared Robin, until the shrill shriek that rang out from her wife as she passed through the doorway into their daughter’s bedroom.</p><p>In the thirty seconds it took for Robin to leap off of the couch and run down the hall, Alice’s screams turned into hysterical sobs, and the blonde grabbed onto Robin’s shoulders with a frantic desperation as the woman made her way into the room.</p><p>“Where is she, Robin? Where’s our baby?!” Alice pleaded for answers through her tears as Robin’s heart plummeted into her stomach from her chest.</p><p>As Robin looked around the room, she felt her heart sink deeper and deeper, the pain intensifying. The room itself didn’t look terribly out of place; Sophie’s clothes remained hung up in her closet, her toys put away in their bins, stuffed animals at the teaparty table and books all organized in a row. </p><p>The only two things out of the ordinary, was the lack of Sophie, their bubbly, blonde-hair and blue-eyed little girl, who should have been fast asleep in the crib that hadn’t yet been turned into a toddler bed…</p><p>And a book, laying face up on the floor beside their daughter’s bed. Robin didn’t recognize it, but as she stepped closer, she let out a gasp as she recognized the object affixed to one of the pages of the book.</p><p>A mirror. One of the plastic ones.</p><p>In that moment, as Alice let out another anguished cry, Robin knew what it truly meant to be afraid.</p><p>_________________</p><p>Sophie was far from what one could call a crier.</p><p>When she was a baby, and needed something from her Mother’s, instead of a cry, she would let out a squawk and a grumble to get Mama’s attention or Mommy’s to come and give her what she wanted</p><p>As she got older, and started to walk, anytime she fell and hurt herself would be met with a giggle and sometimes a tiny “Owie!” but never a cry, she didn’t need to express herself in a way like that.</p><p>Sophie’s temper tantrums were shown with defiant looks and the fiercest words a two year old knew how to say, “No!” and “I don’t want to!” Instead of crying.</p><p>It didn’t matter who she was with, Sophie just didn’t find a need for crying. It wasn’t necessary at all.</p><p>As she got marched off to bed that night, she had let out a few annoyed huffs that playtime was over, but still got in her hugs and kisses and squeezes, and then even though she was overtired and upset at having a bedtime, the girl fell asleep with a smile.</p><p>No crying needed.</p><p>But then she was waking up, and instead of the turquoise blue soft blanket that Nana made for her, being wrapped around her… She met with nothing.</p><p>And instead of the stuffies that usually were piled into her bed, her elephant from Lucy, a shark from Papa, a bear from Henry and an apple (everyone groaned, though she loved it) from Auntie Gina, her arms shot out and once again met with nothing.</p><p>The last straw was when the usually melodic lilt of her Mama’s voice, calling out to her and encouraging her to open her eyes and greet the day, was replaced for a cold and fake crone of “Get up child, time to get up.”</p><p>Sophie’s eyes popped open, and instead of her beautifully decorated nursery and her loving, adoring parents, her eyes fell on stone walls, and dust, and an old woman leering at her.</p><p>“Mama? I want my Mama.” Sophie whispered out, the laugh that left the woman’s mouth hurting her ears with how shrill and scary it seemed.</p><p>“No time for that, dear, you belong with me now.” </p><p>Sophie didn’t like the sound of it, her mind screaming at her to run, to get away, and as she stood to do just that, she was forced back down onto the bed by something unseen, before the voice laughed again.</p><p>“I wouldn’t try, dear, you’re a hundred feet in the air. This is my tower, your new home, and I am your Grandmother, you may call me, Gothel.”</p><p>And Sophie began to cry.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm going to warn that this story can get really dark in some places. For the most part it's meant to be a fun adventure of a little girl trying to find her way home, but it does deal with the darker themes of child abduction and loss. If you are particularly sensitive to these subjects, I don't recommend reading, because even though there is a happy ending planned... It goes some pretty dark routes to get there. The dark is juxtaposed with the light though, so if you can handle some angst, followed by fluff, then please I hope you enjoy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Losing a child is a horrific thing to go through. It can devastate Mothers, shock and silence families, and even cause a divorce or two. Especially when you have no idea what has happened to that child... The what if’s surrounding their disappearance are ruining.</p><p>Five years go by without a single hint on where tiny Sophie Jones has disappeared to. She vanishes into thin air, in a sense, and despite their best efforts, not a single person in either realm can find her.</p><p>Zelena is baffled, she’s felt an earthly connection to her granddaughter since the moment she was born, and so the woman was certain that she could help.</p><p>Not even Zelena, Regina and Emma working together can find a wisp of where the young child has been.</p><p>Hook is furious, he’s spent most of his daughter’s life trying to save her from her evil mother, only to lose his granddaughter to the same wench of a woman.</p><p>All of his earthly travels only tell him that.</p><p>Gothel has Sophie, and not even all of the good men he’s hired to look into it can find hair or trace of them.</p><p>Henry is determined, he is King now, and with all the responsibilities of being King, he knows his first and foremost dedication is to his family, all branches of it.</p><p>He has his knights scour the fairytale realm, doing what the alternate version of his once-Stepfather has done for the Hyperion Heights realm. They look high and low, Henry leading the search, and still come up with nothing to find and no further than Hook has.</p><p>Emma is disgusted, she hasn’t known Robin long, at least, not this version of her. She acknowledges that this Robin is not the baby that she helped save, and that Alice is not the daughter of HER Hook, but still, she feels for them. But still she knows what it’s like, from the opposite side, being a child that was taken.</p><p>So she helps Zelena and Regina try to locate baby Sophie. She searches her own home realm of Storybrooke, she enlists her Father, Mother and anyone else she can. Emma tries to help, and is disgusted when she can’t find Sophie.</p><p>Robin is devastated, years of watching her wife with amusement as she went through her routines of door checking and mirror destroying... To think that something that seemed kind of unnecessary to her, could have been the thing that saved her child from going missing. It digs straight into her heart.</p><p>They keep Sophie’s room just the same, certain that they are going to find her, find her and bring her home. A year goes by, then two... Sophie’s bed grows musty, her furniture thick with dust, Robin is ready to admit that she’s gone for good, especially as her whole family come back with nothing new to report.</p><p>She’s ready to admit it, except she can’t...</p><p>She can’t because of Alice, because of her beloved.</p><p>If Robin is devastated, then Alice has completely broken... shattered into pieces that the blonde isn’t sure if she can put back together, not without Sophie.</p><p>Robin watches as Alice falls more and more into despair, and everyone is so concerned about finding Sophie that they all fail to see how the happy, if yet slightly quirky, woman has turned dark and brooding.</p><p>Her ‘quirks’ are not about locking doors and windows anymore, or taking weekly trips to a troll statue with marmalade sandwiches and a story of magic.</p><p>Alice now obsessively checks missing person databases, news channels, online obituaries, anything that might tell her what has happened to her child.</p><p>She goes to the Hyperion Heights police station almost daily, begging for help, begging for news, and Robin is sure that if Alice’s own Father wasn’t a part of that police station, then the blonde would find herself behind bars for the hysterics she goes into.</p><p>Crazy Tilly, absolutely mad... It’s like she reverts back to what she was like before the curse broken. </p><p>Robin has no choice but to watch as Alice self-destructs, not sure how to help her, other than to keep looking. And so Robin pours herself into it.</p><p>Five years goes by without a single hint, their family suspended by a thread, dangling over completely broken and still has a slight chance at coming back.</p><p>And then a discovery cuts the thread.</p><p>_________________</p><p>In spite of being held captive away from her parents, Sophie Jones manages to grow up into a bright, resilient and for the most part happy young child.</p><p>Gothel is not around much, something that the seven year old is thankful for. The woman may insist on Sophie acknowledging her as her Grandmother, but the young girl only sees her as an evil, ugly, old witch.</p><p>At first it takes some adjustment, being alone, Sophie is only two when she is abandoned in the same tower that her Mother called home for years...</p><p>Independence does not work for a toddler that hardly knows how to feed themselves, much less how to take care of the rest of her important daily needs.</p><p>She learns quick though.</p><p>Gothel leaves her bread, and fruit, and vegetables, and so toddler Sophie is able to feed herself those things. She knows how to dress and undress herself as well. In a divine moment from the powers that be, Sophie was potty-trained early, and so her hygiene needs consists of washbasins and cloth.</p><p>She becomes independent, her ‘grandmothers’ visits coming few and far between, especially as Sophie grows and discovers all of the things that she never knew she could do all on her own.</p><p>Sophie remembers helping her Mama hang their clothes out on a line in their garden, and so the growing child is able to slowly figure out how to wash not just her, but her clothes as well.</p><p>She looks at books where Goldilocks eats porridge off of a stove, and so, after a few failed attempts (ones in which she got burned) she learns how to make things, very basic things, out of the food that Gothel brings.</p><p>Over five years, Sophie, who is proven to be a very bright child learns how to; make up her own games to pass the time, keep her tower nice and clean, tell herself stories from the pictures in the books Gothel reluctantly gifts her, and recount all of the things she remembers from before she was taken.</p><p>Getting chased around the living room by Uncle Henry, before getting caught and tickled by him.</p><p>Sitting on Mommy’s shoulders and walking down the streets of Hyperion Heights, saying hello to everyone.</p><p>Getting tucked in by Mama, and lots of kisses.</p><p>Over five years, Sophie, who is proven to be a very bright child... comes up with a plan to escape.</p><p>It starts with an easy step, don’t let herself forget.</p><p>And so she tries not too.</p><p>Little things fade from her memory, like what her Mama’s face looks like, or what her Mommy’s voice sounds like... but she doesn’t forget the big things like how they made her feel, or how much they loved her.</p><p>It’s actually her Mama that helps her escape, or at least, in a way it’s thanks to her that she’s able to.</p><p>_________________</p><p>Sophie has studied the window of the tower over and over again, dropping little things over the edge to see how far they fall, how hard they land, how much they break. She knows it’s her way out, but she knows if she jumps, she won’t make it the ground in one piece.</p><p>She tries to make ropes, tying sheets together, but they all unravel before she can put them to the test.</p><p>She tries to call for help, screaming as loud as she can out the window, but she’s too high up to be heard.</p><p>It’s a bright, sunny spring morning when she’s seven years old (she thinks) that the idea hits her. It’s not even a thinking day, when she brainstorms ways to get out, nor is it a learning day, where she tries to figure out what else she can do.</p><p>It’s a remembering day, a sad day, where she thinks about her Mama and Mommy and wishes with all her might that she could just go home to them.</p><p>She’s curled up into a ball, whispering to herself. “Orange sandwiches, and the troll statue. Mama said the troll would help her. She always hugged it goodbye and so did I.” Everything Sophie remembers from their Thursday picnics. “Mama said that the troll saved her... I wish he would save me too.”</p><p>THUUUUUUD!<br/>The sound has her jumping from where she’s curled up, a crashing follows the loud thud, the sound of broken trees and there’s knocking on her tower wall.</p><p>The tower shakes, the remains of her mother’s belongings, books and toys and clothes, knocking over and crashing to the ground as she shrieks</p><p>“Who’s th-there?” Sophie calls, fear pumping through her veins. She’s never had a visitor before, especially not one on the outside of the tower. “Hello?”</p><p>“Allliiiiceeeee.” A deep grumble can be heard, before a giant eye presses against the hole of her window.</p><p>At first Sophie wants to scream again, until she recognizes it, or at least recognizes it from her Mama’s stories. “Troll? The troll statue, my Mama’s friend!”</p><p>The eye blinks and stares, the grumble is back and it shakes Sophie to her bones as it booms. “Mama?” Then it steps back in confusion. “No Mama.”</p><p>The troll turns to step away, and Sophie lets out a scream of desperation. “No, wait! Please, wait!” He stops and looks back at her, the girl has tears running down her face, her face a mixture of helplessness with tinges of hope running through the mixture.</p><p>“Alice is my Mama.” Sophie explains, running to her window, trying to get the troll to come back. “You can take me to her, please, help me get back to her!”</p><p>Sophie climbs onto the ledge, holding to it tightly as another tremble hits the tower when the troll speaks again. “Alice Mama?” He shakes his head, causing a gust of wind to nearly blow the little girl back into the tower.</p><p>“Please! I just need your help to get down, that’s all I need.” Sophie begs again, trying with unsteady feet to get herself standing on that ledge again. The troll is close, almost close enough that she could jump, but she doesn’t want to make any rushed decisions that could harm her.</p><p>“What if I climb to you? What if I climb the tree branch to your shoulder, you can help me down?”</p><p>“Not safe!” The troll demands angrily, shaking his head again as Sophie reaches for a branch just above her head. When the tree was standing, it was too far for her, but now that he has knocked it over, it’s just the right height for her to use to climb out of the window. </p><p>“If you catch me, it will be.” She reasons with him, heart racing at the idea of finally being free.</p><p>She’s got her hands wrapped around the tree branch and she’s dangling feet from her window when the sound of other shaking off in the distance stills her. That’s when she understands why he refuses to help. </p><p>“Troll eat children!” </p><p>That wasn’t in Mama’s story.</p><p>She watches as the trees in the distances are sent flying, getting knocked down and trampled by the swarm of other trolls. These one are bigger, scarier, they don’t remind her of the troll statue at all, they’re something worse.</p><p>Her troll bows his head, Sophie suddenly aware of how precarious her situation is as she’s hung a hundred feet over the forest ground with a horde of trolls on it’s way. “I not eat Alice Mama. Troll do.”</p><p>A loud roar is heard in the distance, hungry, angry and booming. It takes Sophie by surprise and she lets out a scream and lets go of the branch she’s clinging to.</p><p>She’s falling to the ground, so rapidly that she’s sure there will be nothing left of her afterwards. All Sophie can do is close her eyes and brace for impact, but impact doesn’t come, not in the way she’s expecting.</p><p>Sophie falls against something hard, and it knocks the wind out of her, but she’s still alive. She’s still alive as the troll brings his hand up to his face and he stares at her with concern in his eyes. “Alice Mama okay?”</p><p>“My name is Sophie.” She manages to wheeze out, laying in his palm stunned. “Please help me.”</p><p>As the crowd of trolls gets closer, and louder, the one holding Sophie seems to finally understand. He closes his hand around her, just enough to conceal her, and he begins to run (as much as a thousand pound beast can run) away from the horde. </p><p>“Hold on.” He grumbles. “Me save Sophie.”</p><p>And as the two of them leave the remains of Sophie and Alice’s tower behind, a ripple of magic courses through the area, crumbling the stones and rocks holding up the tower, until the area is nothing more than a ruin of past lives that have moved on.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It has been a very long time since I've written this story, and I apologize, I plan on seeing it through just life got in the way. I will warn that this chapter has a lot of angst written in, and very brief mentions of child death (not the main character). I hope that everyone who was enjoying this story has found their way back, and once again, I apologize for the delay. This story means a lot to me, I've been working on it for quite a long time and have plans for a few sequels, so I hope you continue enjoying it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When one of Henry’s knights finds the bones of a child at the site of Alice’s fallen tower, the breath of every last individual in Storybrooke, Hyperion Heights and his kingdom is held with a shudder until the remains are thoroughly examined by Dr. Whale.</p><p>Not Sophie. He claims. The child was too old, too big and was a male. This offers everyone the chance to breathe again, to rest assured that Sophie… </p><p>Sophie might still be out there.</p><p>The fallen tower provides more pieces to the puzzle. It’s strange, Henry’s Knights have combed every inch of the forest, including the very spot the tower lays in and they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of it in the entire five years that Sophie has been missing.</p><p>“It looks like a spell.” Regina fills them in, her and Zelena going through the rubble of the tower together as Alice and Robin watch in distress.</p><p>“Some sort of charm.” Zelena agrees.</p><p>“It seems like as long as you were looking for her, this place remained hidden…” Regina can’t hold back her amazement at the source of power something like this would take. “Then the moment she was no longer here, the charm broke and the tower collapsed, no longer needing to be hidden.”</p><p>“Who could have done something like that?” Emma is there too, deeming herself vital to the investigation… She is Sheriff after all, and Robin is family to her.</p><p>This time, the reply is soft and whispered. “Gothel.” Alice whimpers, turning her head into Robin’s neck to stifle her sobs as what remains of crudely colored drawings are pulled from the wreckage by Regina.</p><p>“Gothel stole my baby.”</p><p>_________________</p><p>Sophie’s troll runs far; far from the tower that’s imprisoned Sophie for most of her life, far from the other trolls (the violent ones, that eat children), and far from where Gothel (or anyone else) can find her.</p><p>For the first few hours of her escape, the seven year old lays still in the outstretched palm of her rescuer. With each step, the hand holding her rattles and Sophie is terrified that if she stands, she’ll rattle right out of the troll’s hand. And so she lays still and quiet.</p><p>Fingers furling and unfurling around her, Sophie stares in amazement at what the sky actually looks like, branches and foliage dangling above her on occasion and the sound of birds in the distance.</p><p>Her tower never really had birds, or blue skies.</p><p>The troll speaks, but only rarely, taking the time to ask “Sophie okay?” once in a while to the quiet child. Sophie doesn’t mind the silence, she’s used to it. The deep, loud booming voice of the beast that saved her life and gave her freedom is what she’s not used to.</p><p>“I’m fine!” She squeaks out, eyes wide in disbelief at the fact that she’s done it, she’s actually done it, she got out of the tower and she’s free. She’s finally free.</p><p>After the shock wears off, Sophie finally stirs. Although it’s only slowly, she is able to get to her knees and then her feet, standing upright in his palm so that she can see more than just the sky over her.</p><p>She moves to the edge of his palm, wrapping her arms around one of the troll’s fingers to keep her balance, and then she’s able to peek out at the world.</p><p>And it is magnificent.</p><p>They’re in some sort of forest, trees stretch far as her eyes can see and woodland creatures scamper about. Sophie spots a deer, a real life deer, and she’s overcome with emotion. “Hi there!” She shouts out from where she’s perched. “Hi friend! How are you?!”</p><p>That becomes her new game as the troll slows to a leisurely walk, is to say hello to everything that they pass; birds, bunnies, deer and what not. </p><p>As the day turns to dusk and Sophie’s successfully greeted half of the forest that they’re wandering in, a yawn escapes her and she finally asks the troll.</p><p>“Mister Troll, where are we going?”</p><p>“We go home.” He grumbles deeply, the word reverberating off of the trees that enclose them.</p><p>For probably the ninth time that day, Sophie becomes emotional. It’s all she’s wanted in her life, it’s what she’s fought every day to do, it’s… it’s-</p><p>Not her home.</p><p>He brings her to a clearing. It’s big and well-kept, large trees hide them from on-lookers. It might not be her home, but it’s better than her tower ever was.</p><p>As the two of them settle into the clearing for the night, the troll brings Sophie oranges, dozens of them, from a nearby patch of orange trees. </p><p>He’s almost giddy to show off to her, laying the oranges down in a gigantic pile, before swiping them closer to Sophie and nodding to them. “Eat. Good.”</p><p>She grabs one, begins to peel it and he huffs out an annoyed sigh. “No. Not eat. This eat.” And he puts an entire orange into his mouth, chewing it up peel and rind entirely. He eats another one like that and pats his belly before pointing to her orange. “Good.”</p><p>Sophie’s eyes widen. “Of course, marmalade.”</p><p>The troll stops chewing long enough to stare at her in confusion. “Mama?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“No, marma…” She explains. “Marmalade.”</p><p>He continues to stare at her in confusion, though he resumes chewing his oranges as Sophie finishes peeling one and eats the wedges selectively. </p><p>“It’s like an orange jam.” She smiles as she eats another wedge of her orange, the juicy fruit tasting surprisingly sweeter than any fruit Gothel has brought her over the past five years. “Mama and I used to bring you sandwiches that were made with it.”</p><p>“Mama!” He exclaims, his voice rumbling across the forest and shaking some of the trees. “Alice Mama!”</p><p>Surprisingly Sophie doesn’t flinch this time from the loud roar, she’s gotten used to it, and him. Instead, the realization dawns on her quickly. “Oh! You’re asking about my Mama, you aren’t asking about the jam.”</p><p>He nods his head, orange juice flying everywhere with every move he makes and repeats. “Alice Mama.”</p><p>Sophie gets a lump in her throat that she can’t quite get rid of, so she chews another piece of orange before continuing. “I don’t really remember much…”</p><p>For a moment she chews on her bottom lip. “Mama was really beautiful, same with Mommy… I think.”</p><p>Tears begin to pool in Sophie’s eyes, and she tries to rub them away with her fist but they’re falling faster than she can keep up with them. “I want to go home, but I don’t know where that is, Mister Troll.”</p><p>He is confused once more. “This home.” He says, the demand on his voice, he points at the orange trees that they ate from. “That food.” He turns to gesture to the ground. “This bed.” He finishes up by pointing at himself and smiling a gummy grin. “Me friend.”</p><p>Sniffling back her tears, Sophie shook her head slowly. “No, I want to go back to my home…” Her voice wavered as she tried to keep together, the exhaustion of the day hitting her like a ton of bricks. </p><p>“I want to see my Mommy, and have her chase me around the house to tickle me.” That was one of the few things she remembered about being home.</p><p>Biting her lip, she continued, her fists coming up to wipe away the tears streaking her cheeks. “I want Mama to tuck me into bed with a kiss on my nose.”</p><p>Her tears are wiped free, but they still eat at the back of her mind, even as she tries to stay strong. </p><p>Sophie finishes a few oranges and then moves to sit beside the troll, nuzzling her tiny body into the crook of his elbow as he begins to lay back against a tree, the large overgrown pine groaning and cracking under the pressure of his body leaned against it.</p><p>He pulls her in closer, using one finger to gently tap on her head (maybe a little more jarring than he meant but Sophie understands the sentiment) as his other hand stills and he whispers. “Bed now.”</p><p>With the entire day weighing on her, all Sophie can do is nod her tiny head and curl in tighter against the troll, the large beast becoming a source of comfort and security as she finally relaxes.</p><p>“Mister Troll…” She whispers as her breath starts to even out. “You think my Mommy’s remember me?”</p><p>_________________</p><p>Over at the Mills-Jones household, Robin and Alice are in the middle of their night time routine.</p><p>Alice no longer checks windows or doors, she’s given up on it. Robin asked once why she no longer went around the house checking like she had before… A sullen cry of “There’s nothing left for us to lose now.” made Robin decide to never ask that question again.</p><p>Their routine consists now of checking the news, even with Alice searching all day for any information she still insists it be one of the last thing she does at night. It continues into Alice staring blankly into Sophie’s room as Robin does all of the cleaning, and gets herself ready to go to sleep.</p><p>After she’s done and ready for bed, she goes through the process of getting Alice ready as well. </p><p>Even after five years, Alice is like a zombie.</p><p>Robin has to pull her away from Sophie’s room and into the shower. Thankfully, her wife is able to do that on her own. Robin pulls out pajamas for Alice and then tucks her into bed before slipping in beside her.</p><p>The loss hit both of them hard, the only difference is that Robin has been able to keep moving where Alice has remained stuck. It’s not that she doesn’t miss their daughter, but Alice? Alice took Sophie’s disappearance harder than anyone could imagine.</p><p>Robin asked Hook once, about a year after Sophie disappeared, in a moment of desperation on how she could help Alice get back to the woman she married.</p><p>It was in not so kind words that he explained that she might never; that the memories Alice has of her own childhood, of her own imprisonment, has given her a pretty good insight into what their daughter is probably going through, and the outlook? Well the outlook of that kind of life for a child is quite grim.</p><p>He explained to Robin that the only help she can provide Alice, is support, and if she’s not ready to do that… then she might as well leave too.</p><p>Robin decided to stay.</p><p>And so for five years Robin has comforted Alice, cared for her, held her while she cried, and stayed strong even when she wanted to fall apart as well.</p><p>Tonight? Tonight Robin can’t keep up the facade.</p><p>As she curls into bed next to her shell-shocked wife, Robin begins to cry. It’s loud, it’s ugly and it’s jarring as she hiccups between her sobs. “She was right there, she was right there in that goddamn tower for all these years and we never found her!”</p><p>Alice turns to her, lays a few fingers against her chin and wraps herself around Robin. She lets her wife cry and she whispers back five years worth of comfort.</p><p>“She’s alive, Robin, I knew she was alive… and now, now we can find her and bring her home.”</p>
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